Santa Clarita Honored for Sustainable Activities

The City of Santa Clarita has achieved “Silver” status as a California Green Community for its commitment to sustainability. Santa Clarita is one of only four cities to be honored by California Green Communities for its efforts.

Representatives from the Environmental Media Association (EMA), Southern California Edison (SCE) and Green Seal – founding partners in California Green Communities – will present the honor to the Santa Clarita City Council at its meeting on Tuesday, February 28 at 6:00 PM.

“We created California Green Communities to showcase what cities are doing to improve the quality of life for their residents,” said EMA President Debbie Levin. “Santa Clarita is a leader among southern California cities who are modeling sustainable practices for others.”

As a part of its California Green Communities Action Plan, Santa Clarita replaced more than 500 obsolete irrigation controllers with smart, weather-based irrigation controllers to water parks, medians and streetscaping to save millions of gallons of water and increase savings. The new controllers access real-time weather information via the Internet to determine the right time and amount of water needed to irrigate various landscaped areas based on solar radiation, wind, humidity and temperature. The system is similar to a home thermostat, measuring temperature and adjusting accordingly.

Since installation, the City’s irrigation-water management system has grown to become the world’s largest smart-controller water system and in the last year alone, this system has reduced the City’s annual water consumption by more than 150 million gallons.

“The City of Santa Clarita places a high priority on reducing its environmental footprint and preserving our community and its resources for generations to come,” said Santa Clarita Mayor Laurie Ender. “We are committed to being one of the state’s leading green communities and are working towards achieving Platinum status in this program.”

Created in November 2009, California Green Communities is an environmental recognition program that fosters innovative ways for participating cities to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption, while building vibrant, sustainable communities.

In addition to Santa Clarita, the cities of Claremont, Monrovia and Riverside have reached California Green Community Silver status. Other cities participating in the program – Culver City, Los Angeles, Redlands, San Gabriel, Santa Monica, Simi Valley and Ventura – are making progress towards certification as well. City action plans can be viewed at www.CaGreenCom.org. More cities in Southern California are expected to join the program in 2012.